Awoken

by Timothy Miller

  “And the second choice?” Lina prompted.

  Diggs nodded toward the dollman. “Our little friend seems confident that the elders of his tribe can extract the waystone from your hand and even reverse your mutation. And, of course, Mike needs the waystone to help him control the stonesong. We could go to the dollmen city.”

  “Sounds like a no-brainer.” Michael pushed his chair back from the table. “What are we waiting for?”

  Diggs held up his hand. “Hold on, Mike. Going to the dollmen city is risky. VEN agents have been searching for the entrance for years. The hybrid cat you ran into back home called you a Primary. That means VEN considers you a priority target. If they catch us, they will bring you and Melina to the Farm. And what they do in that pit would give you nightmares.”

  “The VEN are the seekers of blood and bone,” the dollman said from the sheets. “And they are legion. This one has killed many of the Fallen, and still they hunt the People.”

  Lina touched her fingers to her silvery hair. “If we hide…can you change this back, Diggs? Can you take out the waystone? I can’t go home like this. Not like this.”

  Reaching across the table, Diggs took her hand and gave a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, Lina. Earthbone mutation is aggressive and, as far as I know, irreversible. All I can hope to do is halt the process, not reverse it. I can surgically remove the waystone, but the earthbone has already changed your cellular structure. You’ll remain as you are, and if I don’t stabilize you soon, your mutation will worsen quickly.”

  “How quickly?”

  Diggs released her hand.

  “Difficult to say,” he hedged.

  “Tell her, Diggs,” Michael said. “If we’re trying to decide what to do about this, she needs to know.”

  “How quickly?” Lina repeated.

  Diggs sighed. “Judging from the rapid changes you’ve experienced since your exposure, I would estimate complete reconfiguration of your cellular structure within two, maybe three weeks.”

  Tears, bright as crystal against her alabaster skin, rolled down Lina’s cheeks. “Two weeks?”

  “I’m sorry, Melina,” Diggs said. “I promise you. I’ll do everything in my power to halt the process before that happens.”

  Michael’s blood began to boil. Two weeks, and the VEN corporation stood between Lina and the only people who could help her. What gave them the right to seal her to such a horrible fate? That wasn’t fair. Worse, it wasn’t right.

  “We’re going to the city.”

  “What about VEN?” asked Lina. “What if they catch us?”

  “She’s right,” said Diggs. “You have no idea how dangerous they are.”

  “I don’t care,” Michael said. “We’re going to the dollmen city. You were right, Lina. I lost the waystone. I used the stonesong without thinking about you. This is my fault. I have to fix this.”

  “What if you can’t?” Lina blurted. “What if the VEN catch…I mean, what if VEN catches us?”

  Michael began to answer, then stopped himself. He wanted to help Lina, but acting without thought was what had gotten him into this mess. Was going to the dollmen city another mistake?

  “The Fallen cannot stop he who was sleeping, thief.” Torn sheets draping his arm like a ghostly shroud, the dollman pointed toward the window. “Do you hear the stone calling? He is the Awoken, bane of the Betrayer and chosen of the People of the Mountain. Neither beasts nor man shall sway his destiny. He is the Awoken.”

  Diggs’s blue eyes bored into Michael like twin drills. “I won’t sugar-coat it, Mike. This is life and death, and there’s no turning back. Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

  Michael’s gaze followed the dollman’s finger to the window. For just an instant, something tugged at the stonesong, a distant thrum like far-off thunder. “We’re going to the dollmen city.”

  Brushing the tears from her ears, Lina smiled. “My parents are going to kill me anyway when they find out I ducked dance camp. I had an awesome routine worked out for this year’s competition, too. Now, Shelly Patterson will probably win again, and she’s such a little diva.”

  Diggs rose from the table. “Only the dollman can show us the exact location of the entrance, but air samples taken by VEN confirm earthbone concentrations are greatest in Kentucky, and most likely originate near the Mammoth Cave system in the national park. That’s a long drive from Michigan, and we’ll have to stay clear of the main roads, which will add a few hundred miles and a couple days to the nine-hundred-mile road trip. Let’s get moving.”

  As he picked up his backpack from the floor and the others gathered their belongings, Michael caught the dollman watching him with bright, unknowable eyes. “You really believe all that destiny stuff?”

  “Listen to the words of the earth and bone,” the dollman replied, cryptically. “I hear them even now.”

  “Earth and bone, huh?” Michael shook his head. “Well, I don’t hear them. What are they saying?”

  The little man smiled and lowered his eyes. “Behold the Awoken.”

  22

  Girls and Pancakes

  The green marble cut past the blue, overtaking the marble with the red and yellow swirls as they sped around the rim of the plate. Around and around the marbles lapped, avoiding maple syrup and pancake crumbs as if they were oil slicks on a racetrack.

  “Should you be doing that in here?” Lina asked.

  Michael’s concentration faltered, and the blue marble leapt from the plate and went skittering across the table. “There’s nobody here but us. Besides, I need the practice and merging with glass is way safer and easier than rock.”

  Sending out a tiny surge of the stonesong, he drew a score of marbles to the center of the table. Focusing his power, he painstakingly began to stack them atop one another.

  The pillar was several inches high and topped by a spinning crown of six red marbles before Lina knocked them over with her fork. Marbles flew in every direction, several falling onto the floor.

  “Hey,” Michael protested. “I was doing pretty good that time.”

  Lina simply glared at him. “Stop showing off and put those away before someone sees you. It’s like babysitting a two-year-old with superpowers.”

  Michael grinned and set the open marble bag between them.

  “Shazam.” Every marble on the table rolled into the bag of its own accord.

  “Cute. What about the ones on the floor?”

  “Wait for it.”

  A marble peeked over the edge of the table, and then all the marbles from the floor hopped up onto the table and zipped into the bag. Scooping up the bag, Michael closed the drawstrings with a flourish. “Ta-da.”

  “You’re an idiot. Can I finish my pancakes now?”

  Michael sat back in the red vinyl booth and shrugged. “Be my guest. I’m full.”

  The diner had a blue neon sign outside naming it “Jericho’s Pancakes n’ More.” In Michael’s opinion, the sign should have read, “Jericho’s Pancakes and You Don’t Need Any More.” Half of one of the diner’s culinary monstrosities had left him feeling like an overinflated balloon. Bored, he’d spent the last half hour practicing with the marbles. Glass didn’t feel the same as rock, but the melted sand still retained a spark of music the stonesong could reach.

  Lina squirted another helping of maple syrup onto her heaped plate. She’d already finished three of the huge pancakes and was in the process of inhaling a fourth with no signs of slowing. Her appetite had been growing steadily for the last three days—a side effect of her ongoing mutation, according to Diggs. More silver appeared in her hair every day.

  “I can’t believe you’re even using the stonesong around me.” Lina speared a helpless piece of pancake, jamming the morsel into her mouth. “After what happened last time.”

  “Diggs says I’ll only merge with you if I lose control of the stonesong, or if I try to use more than I can handle. Moving marbles barely takes any power at all. Plus, I don’t get as sick afte
r.”

  Lina made a face. “Still not normal.”

  Michael laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Lina, you’re as strong as an ox and can jump like a gazelle. I can move marbles without touching them, and my eyes are silver under these sunglasses. If we were in showbiz, we’d be millionaires.”

  “I’m already rich. Even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t want to be if it meant I had to be a freak.”

  Michael’s backpack shifted next to his thigh. The flap opened a crack, revealing a pair of gleaming silver orbs. “This one is hungry, Awoken. May this one have some food before the thief eats it all?”

  “I told you to stop that,” Michael said. Tearing off a section of his unfinished pancake, he handed the piece to the little man. “I’m Michael, or just Mike, if you want. And Lina gets mad when you call her the thief.”

  “Yer dang ruht, I doob,” Lina mumbled through a mouthful of mashed pancake.

  The dollman retreated into the backpack with the pancake clutched tightly in his claws. “Tell the thief this one is sorry, Awoken Michael Or Just Mike If You Want.”

  Michael groaned. “Looks like I’m going to have to give you a name if you’re ever going to get this right.”

  “This one is of the People and not an elder. This one has no name.”

  “Give it up, Mike.” Lina pointed to his plate. “What’s wrong with your food?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why aren’t you eating?”

  Michael grunted. “I’m too busy wondering if your legs are hollow.”

  Lina pushed another forkful of pancake into her mouth. “Wud do yoob mean, ol owe?” she garbled, spraying squishy yellow bits across the table.

  Michael threw up a hand to ward off the sticky shrapnel. “Gross! Swallow your food before you talk. Or if that vacuum you call a mouth isn’t fast enough for you, maybe we can have the waitress set you up with an IV full of maple syrup and pancake mix.”

  Lina gave him a truly disgusting grin before swallowing. “You’re just jealous. I’m the girl, but you’re the one eating like an anorexic ballet dancer.”

  “Correction. I eat like a normal human being. You eat like a starving hippo.”

  “So now you’re the expert on normal?” Lina waved her fork at his sunglasses. “Those have got to be the stupidest-looking pair of shades I’ve ever seen. Maybe if Diggs hadn’t wasted so much money on them, we wouldn’t be stuck in Hicksville, USA.”

  Michael pushed the glasses further up his nose. In the movies, the hero never had to worry about little things like money. Even poverty-stricken heroes, like Spiderman, could travel to alternate dimensions in distant star systems without ever seeming to worry about the rising price of gas. As it turned out, though, going on an adventure to find an underground city full of short, pasty gremlins was expensive. They needed to eat, and Diggs’s pickup was down to half a tank of gas. Diggs had left them at the diner while he went in search of a cash-paying job in town.

  “Your stomach is costing more than my glasses.” Michael tapped the dark frames. “At least these have a purpose, not like that stupid baseball bat you wanted Diggs to buy.”

  “I was thinking of self-defense.”

  Michael snorted. “You were going to try using a baseball bat against VEN monsters? If you have a death wish, why not just throw yourself in front of a train?”

  “Whatever,” Lina said. “Maybe some of us can’t throw rocks around with our brains.” The chime hanging above the diner’s front door gave a merry jingle.

  Lina leaned out from the booth. “Speaking of ballet dancers…”

  A portly waitress with a tight grey bun emerged from the swinging door behind the counter. Crossing the room, she greeted the four adolescent girls standing near the door and then led them to an empty table. The girls wore a colorful assortment of sequined dresses and glanced often at their glowing cell phones as they sat. They had their hair pinned back with shiny gold tiaras. After jotting down their orders on a yellow tablet, the waitress got the colorfully dressed quartet their drinks and then hustled back through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

  “Why are they dressed like that?” Michael wondered aloud.

  “They’re dancers,” Lina said, a tiny catch in her voice. “They must have just come from rehearsal.”

  “How do you know? Maybe there’s a circus in town.”

  One of the girls caught Michael staring and leaned over to her friends. Instantly, cell phones were lowered as all eyes turned to their booth.

  Michael snatched up a menu and ducked down behind it. A burst of giggling came from the girls’ table, but he refused to look up.

  “Wow,” Lina said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  Michael tilted the menu down just enough so that he could see her face. “Do what?”

  “Kind of neat really, better than moving marbles, anyway. Can you teach me?”

  “What are you talking about?” Michael asked distractedly. He wasn’t even looking at them anymore. Why were they still giggling?

  “Can you teach me to read upside down?”

  “I can’t…oh, man,” Michael slapped the menu down on the table.

  More giggling.

  Lina’s eyes were wide and innocent. “What’s the matter, Mike? Didn’t you want the upside-down cake?”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  Lina spread her hands. “How did I know you couldn’t read upside down? Maybe you have an allergy or something. Have you been vaccinated against puppy love?”

  The backpack rustled. “What is puppy love, Awoken? And when will this one have his name?”

  “Be quiet, nosey,” Michael growled.

  “This one will have the name no-see, Awoken?”

  “Maybe you should see an eye specialist,” Lina suggested.

  Michael nudged the backpack with his elbow. “No-see isn’t a name. Now, be quiet,” he hissed to the dollman. “And shut up, Lina.”

  “This one does not wish to be quiet, Awoken.”

  Lina nodded toward the table. “I should probably tell you. Those dancers are staring at you.”

  “This one desires his name, Awoken.”

  “Oh, for the love of—” Michael slapped the menu hard on the table, knocking over the saltshaker. An almost perfect line of white salt spilled across the menu, underlining the name spelled out in blocky letters on the cover.

  Inspiration struck.

  “Jericho,” Michael announced. “Your name is Jericho, not Lina, all right, or nosey, or whatever. I’m Michael, and you’re Jericho.”

  The backpack shifted. “This one is…Jericho. You are Michael, the Awoken.”

  “Close enough,” Michael said. “Now that you have a name, can you please be quiet?”

  Lina smirked. “Why so snippy, Mike? Are you mad I mentioned the dancers were looking at you? Come on, what kind of friend would I be if I stood in the way of true love?”

  “The kind who gets to keep her teeth.”

  The door chimed again, and Lina leaned out once more for a look. “Diggs is back.”

  “About time.” Michael brushed the salt from the menu and pushed it aside. “Maybe now we can get out of here.”

  Diggs plopped down in the booth beside Lina. “Sorry to disappoint you, but we’ll be staying a while longer.”

  Lina pushed away her plate. “You couldn’t find work?”

  “The fellow who owns the car garage down the street said he’d have something for me on Monday.”

  “Today is only Thursday,” Michael said. “We don’t have that kind of time.”

  “I know. But the fella at the garage said he didn’t have anything for me until then.” Diggs nodded toward the dancers’ table. “There’s some kind of dance competition at the local high school. Seems like a pretty big event around here. First prize is five hundred dollars.”

  Michael crossed his arms. “So we’re stranded, broke, and homeless until Monday?”

  Diggs scratched his whi
skers. “Unless you want to hitch the last hundred miles to the mountains, things sure look that way. With VEN out there, I wouldn’t suggest that route. Like it or not, we have to stay put until I can make some money.”

  “Let me out.” Lina nudged the drifter.

  Diggs let her out of the booth and then sat back down. “Where are you going?”

  “Since we’re stuck anyway, I thought I’d do Romeo here a favor.” Throwing Michael a wink, Lina sauntered over to the dancers’ table.

  Michael’s cheeks grew warm. “She wouldn’t.”

  Leaning over their table, Lina said something to the girls. The dancers laughed. One of them offered Lina a chair, and she sat down.

  Diggs helped himself to a piece of Michael’s pancake. “I think she just did.”

  “I’ll murder her.”

  After a few minutes of conversation involving unhealthy amounts of giggling, Lina excused herself from the table and came back to the booth.

  “They seem to like you,” Diggs remarked as Lina sat down next to him.

  “I think they like Mike more than me.” Lina grinned wickedly. “They want me to send him over.”

  Michael laid his head down on the table. “Someone kill me.”

  An angry growl came from the backpack. “Who threatens the Awoken?”

  “Settle down, Jericho,” Michael said. “I was just venting.”

  Diggs raised an eyebrow. “Who’s Jericho?”

  “This one is Jericho,” answered the backpack. “The Awoken, who is Michael Or Just Mike, has so named this one.”

  “Jericho?” Diggs took his pill bottle out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap. “You named him after a pancake house?”

  “I was a little rushed, okay? Give me a break.” Michael lifted his head. “Looks like you’ve only got about ten of those pills left. Are they important?”

  “Thirteen,” Diggs corrected, popping two of the tablets into his mouth. “Eleven now. And yes, they’re very important.”

  “Well, you can buy more after tonight.” Lina wore a smug look. “I figured out a way to solve our money problem.”